Baltimore Is The Model Of Success In Urban Homesteading

February 02, 1986|By Michael de Courcy Hinds, New York Times News Service.

NEW YORK — The Guinness Book of World Records has not yet established a ``waiting-in-line-to-buy-a-house`` category--(``That`s not something that would be of any interest,`` said a Guinness spokesman)--so it is only speculation that Catherine Van Allen is a possible record-breaker.

The Baltimore kindergarten teacher got in line on Aug. 6, 1982. After eight days of living in a tent on a downtown sidewalk, she reached the head of the line and bought a dilapidated house in a rundown section of West Baltimore. She had never seen the wrecked interior of the boarded-up building, but the price was right: $200. The same day, the city sold 299 other abandoned buildings, all at the same bargain price, as part of its last homesteading program, Rehab Express.

``The only way I could get a house was to homestead,`` said Van Allen, as she gave a tour of her restored home recently. ``I was a single schoolteacher then and teachers in Baltimore don`t make a whole lot of money--I make only about $20,000 now.``

Preserving the city`s housing stock, stabilizing neighborhoods and attracting working people back to the city from the suburbs--these were three of the goals of Baltimore`s Mayor William D. Schaefer in 1973 when the homesteading program began. It was just one among many city-assisted housing programs, but it was the most innovative and imaginative, and it generated a great deal of favorable publicity at a key time in the city`s revival. The success of Baltimore`s revival is now most evident in Harborplace, the rebuilt harbor area, and its now strong real estate market--which, for the most part, has eliminated the need for the city to give away houses to homesteaders.

Now that their own homesteading project is completed, Baltimore officials advise other cities about homesteading. But successful programs have required large public subsidies for construction loans and involved middle-income homesteaders who were able to organize a major construction project--and pay off the loans. Outright grants--such as a New York City pilot program last year that provided 35 families with $30,000 in city grants to restore abandoned houses in the East New York section of Brooklyn--have been few.

In the overall scheme of things, then, homesteading is not considered a significant solution for the crisis in affordable housing faced by so many cities. ``The reality is that there have been some heartening success stories in urban homesteading, but, in terms of numbers, you can shove it in your left eye,`` said George Sternlieb, director of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University.

Baltimore`s homesteading program, for example, brought only 600 houses back to life during the 10-year program. Numbers, however, cannot describe how the homesteading program helped rekindle the city`s pioneering spirit.

``People wanted to move back into the city, but they needed an incentive to give up their nice suburban homes,`` said Paul Schurick, spokesman for the city`s Neighborhood Progress Administration, which is the city`s housing and community development agency. During the 1970s the city sold blocks of abandoned federal-style row houses in downtown neighborhoods for $1 apiece and provided buyers with up to $37,000 in low-interest construction loans. The city provided technical assistance and authorized payments to approved contractors. Major work had to be completed within six months and, after 18 months in residency, homesteaders received the deeds to the houses.

The Baltimore homesteading program evolved as an alternative to urban renewal programs that were phased out. The first homesteading project, for example, was a block of 44 tiny row houses on Stirling Street in Oldtown--one of the lowest-income neighborhoods in East Baltimore. The block had been scheduled for urban renewal, but the 150-year-old houses were saved from demolition when the Nixon administration stopped funding the construction of subsidized housing in 1973. The city, prompted by preservationists, sold the houses for $1 each, but because the houses were so small, homesteaders were allowed to buy and combine two of the 10- to 13-foot-wide, two-story houses.

The Stirling Street project had some of the attributes of a country barn- raising. Neighbors were busy with their own renovations, but they shared tools and design ideas--arched fireplaces were popular--and saved money by hiring one contractor to do all 44 roofs.

``And when we got tired, we had parties,`` recalled Paul A. Gasparotti, a retired government worker who restored 647 and 649 Stirling St. in 1974 and 1975. Inside, the two houses have been joined to appear as one. The rooms are large and have the original fireplaces. Gasparotti, like other homesteaders, worked out his renovation ideas with an architect--which the city required.